We awoke on Wednesday morning to find these little chaps and/or chapesses exploring our vegetable garden. We think it was their first outing of the year (from a burrow under one of the plots), so one of the parents was keeping a close eye on them (and me, videoing from behind the wall above).
Jude and I had mixed emotions. Yes, it’s nice to see the little darlings and nature blossoming, but it’s a constant battle keeping them away from the new shoots… (You will no doubt spot some of the defences in the video).
Alittlebitoutoffocus 
Well Mr Mcgregor you will do well to keep Peter and his siblings out 🤣🤣🤣😂
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Yes, if it’s not the squirrels digging up the bulbs, it’s those pesky rabbits! (The perils of living in the country!)
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Yes, just like Mr. McGregor’s garden! I am back and forth with a squirrel menacing my bird feeders again. He sees me coming out the door and takes off! 😂
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Yes, we also have a squirrel coming to our feeders. I squirt water at it from a washing up bottle from the kitchen window. But it always dodges into the tree just out of firing range! So I have to go outside and chase it off. But it always returns later… 😫
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I thought I really had the solution by attaching a slinky to the top of my feeder pole and letting it dangle down. My squirrels took only a few days to master climbing it while bouncing up and down, was actually funny to watch. (I’ve since taken the slinky down in case one might get tangled.) Sounds like we both need one of those Nerf super-soaker water guns to get the distance! 🤣
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Yes, I looked for a toy water pistol the other day, but the ones I found didn’t look strong enough. Apparently there are some 100% squirrel proof feeders available, where the perch/opening slides down and closes the feed opening, if anything heavier than a blue tit (or equivalent) alights on it. May be worth a try, if you really do want to get rid of them, but my wife says she likes watching them!
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I have one of those open/close squirrel proof feeders, they don’t bother that one much, although I’ve seen a squirrel stretch from the other feeder to grab hold of it to pull over & not trigger the closing, and still get some seeds, little stinker. Looks risky, only seen a couple times, haha. And besides, they have two others they can steal from. They are smart! I’ve watched you-tube videos by Mark Rober who sets up a maze in his back yard to the feeder and the squirrels always figure out a way to get to the feeder, for which the guy prizes them with a bounty to eat. You gotta watch one of those if you haven’t, hilarious!
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Yes, they’re certainly very clever.
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I’m torn both ways, I want to deter them; BUT I also do like watching them too like Jude!
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Mixed emotions, like us with the cute little rabbits. But Jude tells me there’s a lot of fur near the burrow, so we think a sparrow hawk must have got to one of them! There were at least 6 bunnies, so there’s still a few left to admire/deter…!
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You may also find this Osprey website interesting:
https://kielderospreys.wpcomstaging.com/2023/04/23/egg-3-at-nest-4-and-a-brief-round-up/
It refers to each by their ring number (I think) and there are a lot of nests being monitored, so it can get confusing!
Kielder forest (& its reservoir) is in the north east of England in Northumberland.
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I’ve been following that website and blog for several years, I still thank you for sending to me, Mike! I am behind on their posts, I have all of April’s emails in a folder to hopefully read tonight/tomorrow to catch up with them. 🙂
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Ok, good luck with that. It sounds like you have a lot to catch up on.
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